Chaos from Within
Part Ten: Chaos from Within
Luoyang Sword House, Wongak-jeong.
"Look here — we simply wish to see the Eldest Young Master. Is that so difficult?!"
The leaders of the New Murim Alliance, aligned with the Third Young Master, were raising their voices at a maid of Wongak-jeong.
"Is the Eldest Young Master not the host of this banquet?!"
"Then surely, as host, he ought at least to receive his guests' greetings!"
But—
"My apologies, Elders."
Iryeong, one of the triplet maids, wore a face that held not the slightest trace of apology.
"My master is presently convening an urgent meeting for internal personnel only," she said, shaking her head with firm finality. "He has expressed his regrets that he cannot personally welcome the honored guests."
"This is outrageous…!"
The New Murim Alliance leaders pounded their own chests in frustration.
"Then what of the people from the War Department and Geomlim?!"
"Why are they attending that meeting with the Eldest Young Master?!"
Iryeong gave a little shrug of her shoulders.
"That is a decision my master has made. There is little point in telling me about it…"
"Bah!"
They stamped their feet.
"…Then!"
"Then at least Elder Paeng — the one the Eldest Young Master is said to have pushed past the wall…!"
"Let us meet him, at least!"
"Pardon?"
Iryeong feigned a start of surprise.
"At this very moment, Elder Paeng is alone in a quiet place, consolidating his enlightenment." She covered her mouth with her sleeve, wearing an expression of pure incredulity. "You mean to barge in on him at so critical a moment?"
"Ah — no."
"That is not what we meant…"
"Then the Eldest Young Master himself…"
However desperately they wished to verify the truth of the rumors—
"As I have already told you several times, my master is occupied with an internal meeting."
Like rice freshly harvested, cooked, and left to steam until every grain shone with a lustrous sheen, the Eldest Young Master seemed intent on drawing the public's curiosity to its absolute limit. He had already sealed off every avenue of approach.
"Mmm…!"
They made no effort to hide their displeasure — but of course, raising one's voice and flushing one's neck at a smiling maidservant achieved precisely nothing.
"…We'll wait a while, then."
"Honestly…"
In the end, they had no choice but to turn around and return meekly to the grand banquet hall.
Heh-heh!
Watching their retreating backs, Iryeong lifted her nose high with satisfaction.
The master as he is now — even if you are an Elder of the main house, you cannot simply meet him because you wish to.
It was a sense of the world turned upside down.
Only a few months earlier, Wongak-jeong had scarcely received any guests of note. Now even those who had risen to Elder rank were stamping their feet in their eagerness to see the Eldest Young Master.
With this, we triplet maids, too, shall become the idols of the household's lower ranks!
She lifted her already elevated nose still higher.
Heh-hyo-hyo-hyo-hyo!
And so, as she laughed to herself with her shoulders shaking, a thunderbolt of sound transmission crashed into her mind.
"Iryeong!"
"Hiek?!"
Iryeong leapt straight up from where she stood.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
It was the sound transmission of Chief Maid Jeong-a — the person Iryeong feared most in all the world.
"If your business is finished, return to the meeting chamber at once!"
With the power of her Golden Eyes, Jeong-a surveyed every corner of Wongak-jeong without a single blind spot. There was nowhere to hide.
"Yes, yes! Going right now, Chief Maid!"
"If the Eldest Young Master truly can, as the rumors claim, place his hand upon the back of a martial artist who has struck the wall…"
The chiefs of the New Murim Alliance, aligned with the Third Young Master, were gathered in a corner of the grand banquet hall, murmuring among themselves.
"…and push them past it — making them into true masters through some miraculous gift…"
"It would be an extraordinary thing. An extraordinary thing indeed."
This was a celebration for the Eldest Young Master's faction, after all. No one was paying particular attention to men of the Third Young Master's camp — and even those who might have noticed them saw no reason to strike up a conversation here and now.
"…In that case."
As men who had once belonged to the Old Murim Alliance, their political instincts were refined beyond compare.
"…Mmm."
There was the new Sect Leader of the Zhongnan Sect, who, after racking up enormous debts through repeated failed expansions, had chosen absorption into the Luoyang Sword House. There was the Grand Master of the Kongtong Sect, whose school had nearly collapsed from internal strife after the Murim Alliance's dissolution and was now seeking reconstruction under the Sword House's wing. And not only them — every chief of the New Murim Alliance who had come rushing in with their eyebrows flying at the news of the Eldest Young Master was doing the same: watching each other out of the corners of their eyes, drinking aimlessly, prodding at their food, and saying nothing of substance.
"Hmph."
A loud snort cut through the air.
"You've come all the way to this gathering, and now you're suddenly afraid of the Left and Right Grand Strategists and the Namgung Clan?"
It was the former Sect Leader of the Diancang Sect, who had joined their cluster late.
"Your words go too far, Sect Leader…!"
"Have you not overindulged in the medicinal wine…?!"
Criticism flew at once, twin flames kindling in every brow — but the man was past caring.
Long ago, during the Bloodshed, he had come to understand the terror of the Eldest Young Master. When Yeon Ha-eung — then still known as Yu-gak-pung-mun — had come as Yeon So-hyeon's proxy and said, "Rather than call it a betrayal of your family, I would prefer to say we are seeking a path to live together," the former Diancang Sect Leader had answered thus:
And so, already secretly joined with the Eldest Young Master's side, the former Diancang Sect Leader now turned toward the Third Young Master's camp and began to flick a serpent's tongue.
"Listen carefully, all of you."
Even thoroughly into his cups, his eyes were full of drink yet utterly unshaken.
"Let me sort this out cleanly for you."
"After the Murim Alliance was dissolved," he went on, "Shaolin — that Mount Tai and Northern Dipper of the martial world — sealed its gates. Mount Hua's sword, which had been preparing a brilliant return, was broken by Elder Yeom of Geom-ak-pa-san. The Wudang Sect was torn between Outer Mountain and Inner Mountain. The once-revered Nine Great Sects have long since fallen. And especially…"
His gaze swept across the faces gathered before him.
"Especially those present here. You are the leaders of sects that failed to adapt to the age of capital — and who ultimately submitted to the Sword House."
It was a subject that, among them, might as well have been taboo. The former Diancang Sect Leader delivered it with utter composure, and angry shouts poured down upon him.
"Sect Leader…!"
"Watch your mouth…!"
Given who had assembled, the pressure generated by their fury was formidable even without a scrap of inner force behind it. But the former Diancang Sect Leader's expression was that of a man looking down on beasts who had not only lost their limbs but been bound in chains for good measure.
"'Sect Leader,' my foot."
He tipped back the wine jug he was holding and drank deep.
"Burp. Now that hits the spot!"
Without even wiping the wine running from the corner of his mouth, he addressed the group.
"Sect Leader this, Patriarch that, Grand Master the other, New Murim Alliance — it's all nonsense. Clinging to each other and licking our wounds while we prattle on — it's nothing but children's play."
He clicked his tongue as though he pitied them, then continued.
"Struggle and thrash as you like. You all know perfectly well that this age already belongs to the great clans who have monopolized the power of capital. You also know that for all the hollow prestige of being called 'Sect Leader,' the sum total of what you have is a single Elder seat tossed down by the Sword House — and nothing more."
The longer he spoke, the redder and blotchier the faces of the New Murim Alliance chiefs grew.
"And that is why," he said, driving the nail home with careful, deliberate words, "every one of you came running at the news of the Eldest Young Master — just in case."
One corner of his mouth curled upward into a sneer.
"If you stand with the Eldest Young Master even now, you might somehow recreate that golden age of the Murim Alliance. That is what you are telling yourselves, is it not?"
While he had been talking, they had tried to silence him. But once his words were finished, not a single man among them opened his mouth.
Instead—
"…He's right."
"The former Diancang Sect Leader has spoken the truth."
"Trying hard to avoid it does not make a fact cease to be a fact."
—only the whispering of the other guests, who had been watching the Third Young Master's camp's little farce unfold in the banquet hall, grew loud and lively.
"The influence of the sects that became subordinate schools of the Sword House is considerable, true enough."
"Even so, it cannot compare to the days when they reigned as overlords of their respective regions."
As the murmuring swelled, the faces of the New Murim Alliance chiefs grew darker still.
"Have I struck too close to the bone?"
The former Diancang Sect Leader giggled, glancing around the circle with a mocking grin.
"Does no one have anything to say?"
"…The Third Young Master."
One of the sect leaders forced the words out in a strained voice, and every eye turned to him.
"When he becomes the Young Patriarch of this Sword House — and someday stands tall as its Patriarch…!" He clenched his fist and tried to put force into his voice. "We, too, shall become the mainstream of this Sword House—!"
"—What grand dreams you have."
But the former Diancang Sect Leader's voice crushed the man's hard-won words flat.
"Even if the Third Young Master becomes Patriarch, do you truly believe our circumstances will change in any way from what they are now?"
He had no need to raise his voice. The content alone was enough to freeze them to the marrow.
"Then as now, we will merely occupy Elder seats. Our lot of scrambling for the scraps that fall from the table will remain exactly the same. When you compare the future us with the old men of the War Department today — do you really think we will be in any better position?"
Had they not known this, not a single one of them would have attended the Eldest Young Master's banquet. And so they could do nothing but avert their eyes, trying to escape the whispers rising all around them.
"Ahem!"
Unable to watch any longer, the Sect Leader of Zhongnan stepped in, even loading a faint thread of inner force into a pointed cough.
"Sect Leader. There are eyes watching. Would it not be best to leave it at this?"
"Zhongnan Sect Leader."
The former Diancang Sect Leader clicked his tongue as though he found the man pitiable.
"Surely you are not going to claim that you still have not caught on?"
"…Caught on to what?"
"The Bloodshed."
At that single word, the chiefs of the New Murim Alliance fell silent — and the entire banquet hall stirred.
"Come to think of it…!"
"In the past, we only sneered at talk that the Eldest Young Master stood behind the Bloodshed, dismissing it as empty rumor. But looking at the capabilities he displays now… it may not have been empty rumor at all."
Through that swelling murmur, the former Diancang Sect Leader's voice rang out with perfect clarity.
"Zhongnan's previous Sect Leader was dragged away during the Bloodshed without a mouse or bird knowing, and vanished. Not only him — all of his martial brothers were taken as well, and so…"
He raised a finger and pointed it at the present Sect Leader of Zhongnan.
"…you, the only one left among them, became Sect Leader. But did you know?" He laughed with a sound like air escaping a punctured bladder. "It was fortunate for you that you became Sect Leader. Your senior brothers were all talentless trash."
"…Sect Leader."
The Zhongnan Sect Leader's voice dropped, dark and cold.
"Just what, exactly, are you trying to say?"
The former Diancang Sect Leader shed his smile and opened his mouth.
"What I am trying to say is—"
But—
"What he is trying to say is this."
His words were cut short by a voice from the opposite side.
"That, for the sake of being even a little useful to this house's future—"
Recognizing the owner of that voice, the former Diancang Sect Leader quietly bowed his head and stepped back.
"—when the treason of that time was uncovered, I personally disposed of every last one of your martial brothers. That is the point."
Escorted by his maids, the figure who appeared in that place was none other than the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon.
"……"
That vast grand banquet hall sank into a silence of wordless, screamless shock.